Like many commercial enterprises spewing forth pollution or an attempt to downplay what pollution can occur, the headquarters of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission has lovely flowers in front of its building. The problem is the Ironbound, the community where a new gas fired plant is proposed, has several plants already.
Drive down Wilson Avenue toward the Turnpike and Doremus Avenue where the county jail is located and you are treated to a certain– shall we call it pungent?—odor. There are two issues here: first location; second, using fossil fuels instead of green energy.
PVSC serves 48 of the most congested cities in the Nation. Perhaps you don’t live where Sandy shut down the old power plants, resulting in sewage in the streets, but the residents in Newark and Jersey City do. The DEP says there’s not enough green energy to run the plant. Why? Because the fossil fuel industry continues to oppose what it calls subsidies for green energy while it has received billions over the years.
Prayer for the Day
What are we doing to the world you gave us, O God,
With our lack of concern and wastefulness?
How is it that we continue to disembowel the earth,
Destroying the life created by your hand?
Shake us loose from our lethargy and languor,
And give us the energy to move into action.
In the name of the One who is our strength,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
The American taxpayer helps underwrite oil, gas, and coal production with very little to show for it. The businesses drilling for oil and gas and mining coal enjoy effectively lower income tax rates than other American businesses because of an array of favorable provisions in the US tax code… about$.9 billion a year.
Joseph E. Aldy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
What we see here are the consequences of another power plant in this community would be profound. These are people’s homes, their schools, their places of worship, all choked with fossil fuel pollution.
Andy Kim, speaking against gas-fired sewerage plant
Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth
And the world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
Psalm 90: 1-2